Blender 3D Graph Builder Addon Tutorial

Graph Builder Addon lets you generate 3D Bar Graphs from simple values. The bars can have simple animation.In this tutorial,I will be making a simple 3D graph in blender with this Addon.

You can download the addon on Github and download the data that I am going to use and end result from here, in case you want to follow along . Though you can use any data you want, just make sure data values are integer and each value is separated by a comma. 

Just to give you an idea Graph Builder addon work like this.

 Installation

Just extract the file. Open Blender and go to user preferences and select “install from the file”. Then locate and choose the graph.py file.

Tutorial:

There are 4 panels in the addon.

We will go to them one by one and see what are their usage.

Step1: 

Copy Data into the data values and set the factor.

Here, you want to enter the values that will be used to draw the graph. Each value represents a bar on the graph. Values must be separated with a comma (,).

I am just copy pasting the data.

Factor: The size of the bars in graph is calculated by multiplying the respective value with the factor.

If Factor<1 : Graph will be smaller in size.

If Factor> 1: Graph will be bigger in size.

My values are way too big. So, I will set the factor to 0.001.

Step2:

Set the coordinates, gap and grid for graph

Set the origin.

I will also create bases So I will set the OriginZ = 3 to make enough space for the base.

Gap will be the gap between the bars. I will set it to 6.5 in this case.

Set the grid size. [Caution: Grid doesn’t work properly now] . I will leave it as is as I don’t need it in my graph also for now it just generates a not_to_scale grid, hopefully by the time you read this it works fine but for now it would be better to not to use it.

Set the initial size for bars. It is the size initial size of bars when the animation starts. If you are not going to animate it leave it as is. I will set it to 0.

Step3:

Each bar can have a simple scaling animation(from initials size to the real size).Now in animation panel you have three options,

1.       Animation checkbox: check it to animate the graph.

2.       Animation Duration: Set the Animation Duration

3.       Animation Delay: The delay between the animations of each bar.          

    

Step4: 

You can have a base for each of the bars. I will copy the country names here.

             Important: Make sure the Gap option in graph panel is unchanged when generating the base. Also, the OriginZ set accordingly.

            You can adjust the origin and gap for bars from the graph panel. And Text position from text panel before pressing the generate button.

Step5:

Now, the text panel have following options,

Text: This will be the suffix of the Text.

Show Text checkbox: Check it if you want to show the Text in case of the base and Values in case of the graph.

Size: Size of the text. I will set it 0.9

Position Checkboxes: Set the position of text respective to the bar. I will check Top of bar for the graph,

And front of bar for the base. I will leave the text empty as i do not need suffix for the country names.

Now, click the generate button in graph panel to generate the graph.

Then, change the OriginZ to 0(as the base will be below the bars) and click generate button in base panel.

If the generated graph is not what you expected or you want to go back and change something, just undo(ctrl+z) and change the values. So keep experimenting with the parameters until you get the desired result.

After this, you can add materials,textures and headings or customize it manually.

In my case, I deleted the grid and added some materials and textures and here is the end result.

[The  bases are already UV Unwraped so you can add any image texture easily.]

The add-on will get updated and updated .,I will try to update tutorial but if I am late follow the instructions on github. The add-on was created and currently  is maintained by me so if you have and suggestion you can post them here in comments or at github .

I hope you find it useful. If you have any queries, please post them in the comments below.
Thank You Very Much!!:)